Precision Type Folds

Written by Typographica on June 22, 2004

Yesterday, one of the oldest names in the digital font business called it quits at age 12. Precision Type was chiefly a large reseller, offering fonts from over 70 foundries, but they were best known for their Font Reference Guide, one of the first and largest specimen books of digital type. Font sales are closed, but remaining copies of the Reference Guide are still available by phone.

It’s interesting to note: they blame declining sales on the availability of free fonts on the web. While freeware can’t be the sole scapegoat (Precision’s online presence, for example, left much to be desired), I believe the recent outbreak of sophisticated, Google-savvy free font archives does make a dent.

Thanks to Stuart Sandler for the alert.

11 Comments

  1. How recent is this outbreak? It seems like huge agglomerations of free fonts have been around for months, if not years. Just wondering about the scale of your comment.

    SS

  2. Rolf says:

    What are Google-savvy font archives?

    A matter of marketing and promotion I think. Putting your shop to the attention of people is key, this also means getting in the top 5 at Google ;)
    The only question for that is; how do people search for fonts/type? Maybe the keywording project at FSI makes use of their filled database in the future…

  3. Stephen says:

    Hey Steve. Welcome to Fontland.

    “Huge agglomerations” of free fonts have been around since the internet’s infancy, but only within the last year or so have these archives developed online font showings and searching functionality comparable to or better than most commercial outfits. Also, many free font spots now tune their sites to appear high in Google searches for “fonts”, free or not.

    Previously, these sites were what I would call font lover hobbyist projects, but now with the advent of Google ads plus banners and referral programs from font foundries like Agfa and MyFonts, the larger archives are better described as money making schemes than just-for-fun.

  4. Precision�s online presence, for example, left much to be desired

    Even the official statement on their site seems oddly out of touch. One of the alternate ‘font providers’ they list on the page is EyeWire, currently an Agfa-owned site which has existed only as a gutted, abused and deteriorating carcass since Getty Images sold it off nearly two years ago.

  5. Jim says:

    Firsty, I don’t think design professionals use free fonts. If they do they are risking huge legal problems as so many free fonts are rip offs.

    Our site Union Fonts has just undergone a keywording project, so we now appear in the top 2 or 3 for searches for keywords linked to our faces. Whilst this has increased the number of extra people to the site via google, the sales have not increased at the same rate.

    At the same time we have tried targeted direct mail to design agencies across the UK, and these professional designers are reacting positively to these with sales.

    So in my experience Google is great for traffic, not great for sales… for what it’s worth…

    Jim

  6. Rolf says:

    I think it has to be a combination. That your site is found by Google (and I mean on page 1, top 10) is very important, but also include a “send me a printed specimen” link on your site which shouldn’t be “still in the making” but available when a site goes online.
    A good designed printed specimen is better than a pdf with some lines and an a-z listing..

    Direct marketing works good of course, but is expensive when you try to reach the world and not one country…

  7. Clive says:

    Jim, I think Stephen means �font archives�, rather than �free font archives�. ie they are archives that point to commercial font �portal� sites like Fonts.com, and gain a commission from the sales they refer. They don�t give away fonts, commercial or shareware/freeware, they just act as referrers.

    These are similar to the referral sites for almost anything, type “buy DVD” into Google to see an example (the one’s offering “comparisons” are referers).

    As to keywords, see how many commercial font foundries *haven�t* got the term �free fonts� in their metadata.

    The days of the independent type reseller are numbered, and have been for quite some time.

  8. David says:

    The days of the independent type reseller are numbered, and have been for quite some time.

    Is it just me or does this statement contradict itself?

  9. Clive says:

    Is it just me or does this statement contradict itself?

    It would be problematic if you took the term �days� literally. Yes.

  10. judas says:

    This is absurd. Precision Type was neither “Independent” nor ever a truly large reseller nor were they “googled” out of business.

    Instead, they were poorly ran, under-funded (like everyone), and full of overpriced clones that paid no real royalties to actual designers (I am speaking of the Precision Type owned labels – not those distributed).

    Stephen and Clive bemoaning their death as somehow untimely, sad, or indicative of the probable and predictable future of the font industry is just plain wrong.

    If we want to discus the real reasons behind Precision Type’s demise, maybe we should be getting our facts and history in context – after all this is the task of responsible reporting. Sensationalist schlocking is self-serving at best to say the least.

  11. Hrant says:

    If a dinosaur keels over in a godforsaken swamp and there’s nobody around, is it noticed? Thanks to the internet, yes.

    hhp

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